Which of these six is the best H.P. Lovecraft story?

[Bedrockgames]

I know what that's like. I haven't lived in New Bruswick for more than 50 years but when I start getting agitated, the accent comes back. I generally describe a New Brunswick accent as like a Newfie, who was dropped on his head as a baby.

Funny how that happens. I was born here, but spent five years out west and came back with a lighter accent. But for some reason it returns when I get angry or excited (or any mode of speech where I am not as conscious of how I am saying things)

 

[Blue Orange]

'
I would posit that we are the only ones who remember how to spell properly

Spelling wasn't standardized until the sixteenth century or so. So probably a lot of those places were named before people were spelling properly, because spelling properly didn't exist.

Early modern English pronunciation and spelling | Oxford English Dictionary

In the late-fifteenth century printers began printing books written in the form of London English which had already become a kind of standard in manuscript documents. Between 1475 and about...

public.oed.com

 

[MGibster]

It's Berrick. The w is unvoiced. Common for "wick" place names, such as Alnwick (pronounced Annick).

All these years later and I can't even get the damned spelling right!

 

[Hex08]

It's been so long since I read them but I went with The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I remember loving that story

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think a good percentage of both of them date to a time before most people knew how to spell

So, 2023?

 

[Bohandas]

Lol. I've been to Worcester and Gloucester.

If people can't even pronounce Peabody correctly, there is no hope for place names like Leicester. I think even in Massachusetts a third of the people probably don't pronounce that one right

It's spelled "Leicester" but it's pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove"

EDIT:
While we're on the topic of unusual spellings, is there anybody here who can either confirm or refute my suspicion that "samhain" is spelled the way it is because somebody in movable type days accidentally put the "w" upside down in an influential work?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All these years later and I can't even get the damned spelling right!

I think the thing your professor was getting at is that Berwick lies on the England-Scotland boarder, and has changed hands regularly. With a Scots accent "e" has a longer sound, more like "ur".

But I don't think many people who are not local know about the silent "w" in those place names. I think they just use it as an excuse to laugh at tourists! All the places I know with silent Ws are within the boundaries of the former kingdom of Northumbria.

Of course, talking of funny spellings, my name is one. It's pronounced more like Farkar (with rolled Rs) in Scotland, where it originates.

 

[Bohandas]

Come to think of it, "massachusetts" itself is spelled kind of weird. Were either of those "t"s originally voiced?

ALSO, has anyone else found that after reading this conversation for a while everything starts to look like it's spelled weird? Like even words whose spellings make perfect sense?

 

[MGibster]

I think the thing your professor was getting at is that Berwick lies on the England-Scotland boarder, and has changed hands regularly. With a Scots accent "e" has a longer sound, more like "ur".

No. My memory was simply faulty and in actuality I meant Berrick! It's all me!

 

[Voadam]

Come to think of it, "massachusetts" itself is spelled kind of weird. Were either of those "t"s originally voiced?

Like a lot of American place names it is an American Indian name turned into English.

Endonyms​

The native name is written Massachuseuck (Muhsachuweeseeak) /məhs at͡ʃəw iːs iː ak/—singular Massachusee (Muhsachuweesee).[citation needed] It translates as "at the great hill,"[2] referring to the Great Blue Hill, located in Ponkapoag.

Exonyms​

English settlers adopted the term Massachusett for the name for the people, language, and ultimately as the name of their colony which became the American state of Massachusetts. John Smith first published the term Massachusett in 1616.[2] Narragansett people called the tribe Massachêuck.[2]

ALSO, has anyone else found that after reading this conversation for a while everything starts to look like it's spelled weird? Like even words whose spellings make perfect sense?

Yes.

English is functionally terrible in the written language being a poor match to the sounds of words. Ideally we'd have one letter per sound and it would be unambiguous how to pronounce something from how it is written. But English is an amalgamation of a bunch of other languages with different incompatible rules sort of jumbled together and overlapping and multiple letters doing more than double duty on sounds. It really bugs me that stuff from other languages get thrown into English with yet more different weird rules and so the spelling without context of those obscure specific rules gives a completely false impression of the spoken word.

This makes English a very subtle written language, meaning not "Sub tull" but "Suddle" where everything is weird.